
One of the most common and widely-known symptoms of COVID-19 is the loss of smell, or Anosmia, and the large majority of sufferers recover this sense within six months.
However, a small fraction of people take longer to shake off this symptom, if they’re even able to at all, which has prompted researchers to devise ways to curb this disturbing side effect – including one experimental therapy called “sniff-training,” according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Anosmia impacts nearly 60% of sufferers, roughly 20 million people in the U.S. Ninety-five percent of those people regain their aromatic sense within six months, Dr. Patricia Loftus of UCSF told the paper.
That still leaves around one million people with a lingering impairment.
With little data available about what the future holds for those unlucky few, scientists continue to experiment with possible remedies, which has led them to try sniff training.
“We like to say that sniff training is physical therapy for your smell,” Dr. Loftus, an otolaryngologist who treats patients with post-COVID smell loss, explained to the Chronicle.
Under this therapy, patients are asked to gently sniff strong fragrances for 15 seconds, twice a day.
The hope is that this exercise strengthens the support cells of the smell-perceiving nerves, the area which experts believe the virus mainly impacts.
Data about the efficacy of sniff training is inconclusive so far and researchers are continuing to develop different variations of the test, according to the paper.
Multiple projects are underway to determine the practice’s effectiveness.